TVA making progress on cleanup of '09 coal ash spill

Four years after a huge spill of toxin-laden sludge at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston Fossil Plant, a federal official says there's “a light at the end of the tunnel.”

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By The Associated Press

Oakridger - Oak Ridge, TN

By The Associated Press

Posted Jan. 2, 2013 at 6:15 PM
Updated Jan 2, 2013 at 6:18 PM

By The Associated Press

Posted Jan. 2, 2013 at 6:15 PM
Updated Jan 2, 2013 at 6:18 PM

HARRIMAN

Four years after a huge spill of toxin-laden sludge at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston Fossil Plant, a federal official says there's "a light at the end of the tunnel."

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cleanup project manager Craig Zeller told the Chattanooga Times Free Press that work to clean up the spill and create a 400-acre park is a little ahead of schedule.

Although work on the $1.2 billion cleanup will continue for two more years, Zeller and TVA vice president Robert M. Deacy say they hope that boat launches and some walking trails planned for the area are open by summer.

The EPA has described the 2008 spill of about 5 million cubic yards of ash as one of the worst environmental disasters of its kind. An estimated 500,000 cubic yards of ash remain at the bottom of the Emory and Clinch rivers. The agency says coal ash contains toxic contaminants including arsenic, boron, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury and other metals.

Litigation stemming from the spill involves more than 60 cases and more than 800 plaintiffs.

As the utility continues working to clean the site where the ash spilled, the landscape is changing. Recently, the area included a mix of smooth gray berms and sculpted green swales — a stark contrast to right after the spill when mounds of gray ash and muck covered the river inlet and surrounding pasture land.

"When it's done, it will look like a big grassy knoll," Deacy said.

After the project is completed, TVA has to monitor the site for 30 years. Deacy said the utility is committed to restoring the area..

"Our goal is to make sure this never happens again, and we want to put it back (in Harriman) as good or better than it was," he said. "Pretty soon we'll be ready to plant flowers, bugs and bunnies."

Zeller said officials are "about 90 percent done with the excavation of the ash" but still have significant work to do on construction of a new wall around the failed landfill.

When the wall is done, workers will cover the landfill with two feet of clay, seed it and leave it to grow into a "grassy knoll."

Zeller said the final product of the remediation is important.

"The plan is for the whole area to become a recreational park," he said. "That's an important piece to both TVA and EPA, because it's what we're leaving behind."